OPECsux wrote:Please Nissan, get rid of the ugly headlights on this car. I understand that they are designed to deflect air around the mirrors but come on, they protrude like 6 inches above the hood, it seems like a half ass solution to the noise caused by the mirrors. Other than the headlights the rest of the car looks fine to me. I bet that front end would look great with flush headlights. ...

I had similar feelings about my '90 Miata, with the pop-up headlights. It wasn't long before kits were available to convert them into flush headlights and I seriously considered it. And of course Mazda long ago made the change themselves.

But now when I look at a Miata... excuse me, "mx-5 "... it's lost its charm. Too sleek. Too refined. To me, the pop-up headlamps represent the soul of the 1st-gen Miata that won my heart. It didn't need a makeover after all.

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The leaf looks quirky, bulbous, and friendly. I think if they made the leaf more conventional looking, people would forget it is supposed to be an innovative electric car. If they made it more sleek and aggressive it wouldn't perform like it looked. I would prefer if they actually made the leaf look even more bulbous and distinguishable from gas cars and have even more emphasis put on aerodynamics over aesthetics. For example, getting rid of the chrome strip and black hole in the car's front and use aerodynamic wheels (like Honda Insight Wheels ). If you're gonna stand out you might as well go all the way .

veramis wrote:The leaf looks quirky, bulbous, and friendly. I think if they made the leaf more conventional looking, people would forget it is supposed to be an innovative electric car. If they made it more sleek and aggressive it wouldn't perform like it looked. I would prefer if they actually made the leaf look even more bulbous and distinguishable from gas cars and have even more emphasis put on aerodynamics over aesthetics. For example, getting rid of the chrome strip and black hole in the car's front and use aerodynamic wheels (like Honda Insight Wheels ). If you're gonna stand out you might as well go all the way .

My impression is that Nissan was trying to walk a very fine line between being too obviously an EV, which would turn people off (day-glo colors, whacky configurations), and being too unremarkable. They do need some "EV recognition", but not too much.